Jeremy Ray Taylor chatted to Courageous Nerd about his new film London Calling. The action thriller also stars Josh Duhamel, Rick Hoffman, Aidan Gillen and Neil Sandilands.
Jeremy had a breakthrough role in 2017 as Ben Hancom in IT, which he reprised in the 2019 sequel. He has since starred in Senior Year and Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween, to name a few.
Read our interview with with Jeremy below:
How would you describe the set up/premise to London Calling – and your character Julian – for anyone who may be unfamiliar?
Jeremy Ray Taylor: London Calling is about a down-on-his-luck hitman who is basically forced to take his brand new crime boss’ son on a hit to make him a man.
You got to play distinct dynamics with Josh Duhamel and Rick Hoffman – who played your mentor and father respectively. What was it like working with them?
Jeremy Ray Taylor: There was a lot of very awesome, well seasoned actors for sure on this project. All of them were incredible, especially Josh.
I mean, he’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever worked with. He’s freaking awesome. It’s very rare that you get to meet an actor of his calibre and he’s actually as nice as you’d think he was.
So yeah, it was absolutely incredible. People keep asking us about our chemistry and what we did to get there, but it just clicked. Both Rick Hoffman and Aidan Gillen are awesome people to work with.
I’m a huge fan of Aidan Gillen, I watched Peaky Blinders. So it was really weird to see Aberama Gold right in front of me.
So that was really cool and Rick Hoffman’s obviously freaking amazing. It was very interesting to form to his humour because he’s very, very quick. He wants your line on the heel of his line, so that was interesting.
We kind of had to play with that dynamic a little bit as well.
So yeah, it was incredible. An amazing cast and it wouldn’t have been possible without all of them.
Filming for London Calling took place in Cape Town, South Africa. Were there any specific stand out spots or locations? Neil Sandilands, who’s in the film, is a local actor, right?
Jeremy Ray Taylor: 100% of it. Unless there was some B-roll I wasn’t aware of, everything I was in was shot in South Africa.
As an actor, they kind of just tell us where to go and we’re there.
As a tourist, I loved The Waterfront, we were there all the time. This was a shoot where we didn’t have time to do much – it was really just working, working, working.
Josh’s wife was pregnant at the time. She gave birth, he was gone so we basically kind of had to work around that. We were on a very tight timeframe, so I didn’t get to enjoy the city as much as I wanted to.
It’s a beautiful landscape – and South Africans are hard workers. They get it done and they get it done fast. That was really awesome to work with, for sure.
Most of our actors, besides Rick, Josh, Aidan and I were mostly local, which was really cool to see.
How are you similar or different to Julian?
Jeremy Ray Taylor: Me and Julian definitely have some parallels. I’m a big gamer… you’re on my gaming PC right now.
The main differences really was like I do have extensive firearm training. Alan had to un-teach me a little bit on how to hold a gun super professionally.
Obviously, safety is a huge part of that. The whole point was for me not to be safe and kind of wiggling it everywhere. So, I had to break my ground rules with that.
I’m a huge car enthusiast – so I was teaching Josh how to teach me driving manual.
But yeah absolutely, I’m a huge gamer, I’m a little bit shy so it’s… kind of similar parallels there. I’m kind of Julian, but at the end of the movie.
Where can people check out London Calling?
Jeremy Ray Taylor: Right now it’s September 19th, in theatres only. So go and check it out in your local theatre for sure.
Follow writer Conor O’Brien on X.
A lifelong TV and Film buff, Conor founded Courageous Nerd in 2019. He has conducted hundreds of interviews for the site, as well as written comprehensive feature articles on a variety of topics. You can find him on X: @conorrcn.
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